Really good writers tend to be perfectionists. Sometimes a person hates a scene she’s written and thinks it just doesn’t convey the image she has in her head….but then someone else comes and reads the manuscript and sees wonders in the book. When this happens, a writer feels that she has definitely created a good book. But creation is hard work. Perfectionism, revisioning, and believing in one’s work all go together.
In the old days when copy machines weren’t as good as they are now, one would make copies from originals. It was considered very stupid to make copies from a copy. We used to use the words “first generation and second generation copies.” The aim was to make a copy as near to perfect as one could without making one’s copy degenerate into a gray mess with unclear, illegible, incomprehensible words. In the same way, writers try to make the story as perfect as possible. I think it was Napoleon who said, “Trifles make perfection and perfection is no trifle.”
I had a dream once in which I was shown how a story degenerates. I dreamt of an original story that existed in the ether. It was so bright and wondrous and it was sent down to me. But by the time the story came down to me through the veil of heaven, I wasn’t able to see how radiant it really was. But still, it was a lovely idea. I then began to write the story I saw. But somehow what I had written was a shade less bright than the story idea that had come into my human mind (and two shades less bright than the original story in the ether.) Then my readers would read my finished story but what they received in my story was less bright than what I had written..which was less bright than the idea I received which was less bright than the story in the heavenlies. That dream really freed me. I doubt the vision I caught for my Christian folklore romance, Wind Follower, was the highest and best vision God had for it. I also doubt that I managed to convey the vision of the book that landed in my heart. And yet, I know that the finished book is as near perfect as any human writer can make it — whether it is liked or disliked. Such is the nature of creativity. And such was the blessing the dream gave to me. Our readers may or may not see the vision we attempted to depict in our novels but if we know that we have done our best — revising over and over until the heart vision is on the page– we will have peace with the finished story. And we will have a perfect story, acceptable to us and acceptable to editors, publishers, and agents.
Many writers – beginners and advanced– do not like revision. But the advanced writer knows something that enables them to sit through draft after draft, revision after revision…and it’s this. A good story doesn’t tell all its secrets all at once. Unfortunately, it ekes its riches slowly, unexpectedly, and often suddenly.
When I write, I use my first draft to get a good plot worked out. As a writer, I tend toward stories which move slowly and gently toward a powerful and possibly heartrending ending. I watch way too many small films and slice of life flicks. Small stories with great emotional payoffs. Unfortunately many readers like to encounter lots of action along the way. In Shakespeare’s time it was also like this. Shakespeare often writes plays where the main plot carries the action and the sub-plot carries the theme. If he was more interested in the sub-plot, he didn’t give himself away. Consider Romeo and Juliet for instance. We remember the love story but the emotional aspects of the play is pretty much carried along by the action scenes. So Aware of my tendency not to write action, I do my best to write action scenes in the first draft in order not to bore my reader.
After I have finished the first I am always a bit surprised at how my story ended. Having discovered what the story was about, I make it my point in the second draft to make the story gel. There are things I discovered about certain characters, certain places that need to be put in the first part of the story. Fine-tuning is necessary. I have to check backstories and foreshadowings. I have to move stuff around, figure out what should or should not be scenes, sequences, or summaries. By the time I begin working on the third draft the story should have some powerful action scenes – if I’m lucky– and the emotional part of the story –the part of the story I really care about– has been hammered out. I therefore use the third draft to work on my descriptions, to work on the architecture and landscape of the story, to make sure characters aren’t talking to each other in the middle of nowhere. This is also the scene where I remove those scenes which tell instead of show. Because I tend to write emotionless scenes, I use the fourth draft to see if I have adequately shown my character’s heart to the reader. In the fifth draft I concentrate on language. I remove those beautiful but useless beauties. I try to make sure each character has his own unique way of speaking and unique physical gestures. Then I put the story away for a month or so and begin working on another novel. This helps me return to the sixth draft with truly open eyes. In the sixth draft, I edit chapter by chapter, proofread for clarity, grammar, tense agreement, punctuation, errors (wrong name, characters whose descriptions change from one chapter to the next, etc). I search for scenes with too much telling, passive sections, too many instances of the verb “to be.” Sure I use spell-check and grammatik, but I do the manual checks for spelling, etc also because I know I have a tendency to type homonyms and homophones. I also check for my own idiosyncratic errors and mistakes. For instance, I tend to use the word “sigh” an awful lot. I have pet words and pet phrases that creep in way too often. Throughout all the revisions, the story becomes more and more perfect…more and more divine and true.
As I put the finished manuscript into the envelope, after all the revisions have been made, I can trust that I have been faithful to the story given to me. I may not have captured the exact image scene in my original vision of the story but I have almosted it. I have almosted it to the best of my ability. I can then believe the truest and best human representation of a divine truth has been recorded by a faithful recorder and is ready to be published and understood by my fans.
Carole McDonnell
Basics in Bible Study
“Nevertheless…at Thy Word….”
